No Bets Barred: Joshua Van And Alexandre Pantoja Battle For The Future Of Flyweight

Mike Heck (0:01)

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

All right, Mike Hec here from MMA Fighting, and my good friend Jed Meshew is here with me as well, because Jed, the day has finally arrived. It's app day, the all new SB Nation app. It's live now, it's live, Jed.

Jed Meshew (0:18)

It's alive. Yeah, man, I'm really excited. And it's awesome, man. Combat sports, like all sports, but combat sports fans especially, you guys are going to have your voices heard like never before with within SB Nation. MMA boxing, not me, but you, pro wrestling, Mike.

It's, it is a community based app. It's all about community with the new SB Nation app.

Mike Heck (0:39)

It's so easy to use and it can keep, obviously combat sports fans connected to their favorite teams and all of sports too across the board. So I can keep up with the Red Sox, the Celtics, the Patriots and the Bruins all on my phone. And it's so simple to use.

Jed Meshew (0:53)

Yeah, like you mentioned those teams, but there's so much more, because I don't care about Boston Sports, Mike, but I get to follow the NFL, all the other sport, F1, the various sports that I care about outside of combat sports.

And then there's the live experience, because to me that's one of the coolest things. You can chat with us during Fight Cards every Saturday and you can chat with other people in the communities as big events are happening. So it's a really good time.

Mike Heck (1:20)

So, ladies and gentlemen, come fight with us over on the all new SB Nation app. Download it today. Download it right now. What are you waiting for? Download it. What is up, y'all?

Jed Meshew (1:43)

We are back with another edition of No Bets Barred. I am your host, Jed Meshew. And we've got a pay-per-view event this Saturday. I know people don't really. There's some controversy, but I'm going to stick to calling them pay-per-views. One, it's easier. Two, I'm not going to call it premiere or whatever dumb shit. I'm not going to call it a numbered event. I'm going to call it a pay-per-view. People around the world still have to pay for it. They have to pay for these views. So we will call it a pay-per-view. And this is the three hundred and thirty first of those pay-per-views. And it is headlined by Joshua Van taking on Alexandre Pantoja in their Fly Away Championship rematch. And also, co-main event, five round non-title fight between Arman Tsarukyan and Mauricio Ruffy. So pretty decent card. We are coming off the heels of the Noche card. And we're going to break it all down very quickly. Let's talk about Noche.

My cold streak continues. The summer has just been brutal. I was basically even, I think, heading into June. And all I've done is lose since then.

I only had a few bets last week. I actually went two and two on bets last week.

But the parlay was not plus money. And so ended up down like $26, $27, I think. So still down overall in the year. Tough. But the most important thing, as always, the climb climbs on. David Martinez gets it done for us. 14 steps accomplished on the climb. If you don't know what the climb is, we'll talk about it this week, because there is the step 15, the halfway mark is coming this week. And we will talk about that when we get to it. For now, let's dive into Ufc 331 And we're going to do the new normal. In case you haven't been here in a while, welcome back. But we're going to go bottom to top the same way we will be watching these fights on Saturday night.

And the first one, the opener, quite honestly a little bit surprising that this opens the proceedings as Giga Chikadze takes on Joe Anderson, Brito in a featherweight contest, Brito a very large betting favorite, minus 425, the comeback on Chikadze plus 300

And a lot of these early fights, I'm not going to have that much to say about it because I think the lines for most of these are doing, they're telling you what you need to know. Chikadze is on a three fight losing streak, he just got knocked out by Kevin Vigieos. The losses are to good opposition, no doubt about that. Three losses in a row when you're 38 years old, that's probably telling you something. Brito, meanwhile on a two fight win streak, ninja choke Jordan Levitt his last time out. I'm not entirely sure why the UFC has made this, I don't believe Chikadze is still ranked, so this isn't like let's get Brito into the rankings.